Villains and Heroes and Those InBetween
by misscam
Summary: It is complicated. Everything in life is, from the behaviour of tiny particles, to the shape of space-time, to the behaviour of all humans, to the marriage of Mark and Olivia and the undefined between Lloyd and Olivia. Complicated. Lloyd/Olivia, Mark


Villains and Heroes and Those In-Between (Complicated Is the Whole Point)  
by misscam/Camilla Sandman

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Set immediately after 'Course Correction'. Inspired partly by a line originally by Catherine Willows to Warrick Brown in CSI, "complicated is the whole point".

II

Olivia feels like a villain.

She's never wanted to be a villain. It has never appealed to her to hurt others. Rather, she became a doctor to help people and she still finds herself draw to vulnerabilities and need, as if she can mend that too.

(Maybe that's why she was drawn to Lloyd, who carries guilt and smiles as at her with need and want in equal measure. Maybe that's why she married Mark so many years ago, who faced demons in a bottle and needed help to stay sober.)

But it's hard not to feel like a villain when your husband just walked in on you in the house of another man, a man a possible future had you sleeping with, a man who were kissing you just seconds before.

Fuck.

She can still see the expression on Mark's face, eyes unusually wide and not quite looking at her, as if not looking would make it less real. She can still hear Lloyd's awkward words, trying to cover for her with an explanation that was true, but not the whole truth.

She was there to show him brain scans. It just wasn't the whole explanation. Like Lloyd having coffee with her to discuss his concerns over the blackout wasn't just about coffee and concerns, and her growing tendency to be happy every time she sees Dylan and Lloyd both isn't just because she's grown fond of Dylan.

It's easy to just call it complicated. It prevents further definitions. But maybe it's definition enough that it's her husband she just hurt and it's still Lloyd she wants to go see (and kiss and sleep with and wake up in the morning with and hear say her name and listen to ramble about science and lie in a hammock reading books with and and and).

Fuck.

She can't protect herself from what she wants, even if she did want to.

II

When he was young, Mark used to play the hero.

He'd be Superman, flying across the sky and saving the Earth below him, eying Lois Lane all the way. He'd be Batman, disguised while doing good and never claiming the credit. He'd be Spiderman, learning to control his powers and learning to love Mary Jane all the way.

Mark did grow up, but certain things do stay with. Mark Benford, FBI agent. Save the world with a badge, marry the girl and live happily ever after.

That didn't work out that way. Does it ever work out that way?

Try to save the world, lose the woman while at it. Or maybe Olivia was just never his to win, just always to potentially lose. She almost didn't meet him at all. She almost went to Harvard. She almost left him when he was drinking.

Heroes always have a weakness, a kryptonite. His was alcohol, he used to think. Now he wonders if maybe his weakness is himself, always seeking new obsessions.

He watches the Mosaic board and tries to think of how to catch Simon Campos, and not how much he wants a drink.

There's still a world to save, even if there might not be a marriage to save anymore.

II

Lloyd isn't entirely sure what he is anymore. He's been a husband, an absentee father, the blamed party for the blackout (mostly by himself) and the other man in a vision of the future. He might be called a father learning to be there, a brilliant scientist part of the group trying to prevent it from happening again and Olivia's friend.

Those are all labels and he isn't sure which he'd stick on himself anymore. He'd like to change some of them too, like 'father learning' to 'father graduated', 'trying to prevent' to 'successfully prevent' and 'friend' to 'everything he can be'.

For a scientist thriving on complexities and understanding those, he is not very good at life's complications, he observes.

Still, he isn't entirely surprised when it knocks on his door again, even if it is late. He's not sure if he should expect Simon (with excuses and explanations and a plan) or Mark (with a demand for explanation and no patience for excuses and a well-earned rage), but either would not surprise him.

It is Olivia, eyes dark and her face half in shadow as he cracks the door open.

"Hi," he says. She nods slowly, but makes no move to go inside when he opens the door further. He just waits, watching her not look at him.

"I feel like a villain," she tells him.

"I know the feeling," he says sincerely. She does look at him at that, and again nods. She knows he knows.

"What are we then, Lloyd?"

"In the world of physics, we're all tiny particles," he says after a moment. She laughs a little weakly, but it does make the corners of her mouth curl up just a little. "Sorry. I'm a scientist, not a philosopher."

She does smile at that, and he can't not smile back.

"You're not a villain, Olivia," he says after a breath. Briefly, he thinks of the villain he has met, and the torture he endured then and his face must have revealed something, because Olivia puts a hand on his. Her palm is warm against his knuckles and her fingers curl softly into his palm.

He just breathes as she leans into him and her lips trail his jaw, comforting and reassuring. He isn't sure if she knows what went on when he was kidnapped – maybe Mark told her and maybe Mark didn't want to talk about Lloyd Simcoe ever – but he is sure she can venture a good guess in any case.

"Olivia," he says again, cupping her cheek with a hand. She watches him through lowered eyelids, her breath catching a little. "You're..."

She kisses him before he can finish, and he mouths the words against her lips instead, feeling her body tense just for a moment. Then he vaguely hears the door close (must be by his hands, hers are digging into the cloth of his shirt) and her body is curving into his as his is pressing against hers. She is kissing him with fervor until he's breathless and she is breathing with him and into him and everything is mingled.

This isn't exactly friendship, he thinks distantly, and not (yet) exactly a relationship. He's not exactly a villain and not exactly a hero; and somewhere in-between those, he is kissing Olivia Benford, not wanting to stop.

It is complicated. Everything in life is, from the behaviour of tiny particles, to the shape of space-time, to the behaviour of all humans, to the marriage of Mark and Olivia and the undefined between Lloyd and Olivia. Complicated.

Maybe that's the whole point.

FIN


End file.
